The Next Big Thing

In 1997 Tiger Woods asserted himself as one of the best golfers in the game’s history by winning the Masters by 12 strokes at the tender age of 21. It was his first win at a major and he stayed on top of the golfing world for the ensuing decade. Ever since injuries derailed Tiger’s career in 2008, the PGA Tour has been searching for its next dominant force.

For a while, that force looked to be Rory McIlroy, a young Irish kid who won the U.S. Open by eight strokes in 2011. He’s won three more majors since, and was the top earner on tour in both 2012 and 2014. Aside from those wins, however, McIlroy has cracked the top 5 at a major just one other time since 2011, with a 4th place finish in this year’s Masters. The winner of that Masters? Jordan Spieth.

Spieth followed his first major championship with another one. On Sunday, Spieth won the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in Washington with a one-stroke victory over Dustin Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen. Johnson’s embarrassing three-putt on the 18th green saved Spieth from having to win in a playoff and made him a champion at consecutive majors before his 22nd birthday.

What sets Spieth apart from other young stars is his mental toughness. Before McIlroy won the U.S. Open, he held a four-stroke lead in the 2011 Masters heading into the final day before shooting an 80 on Sunday and dropping to 15th place. The pressure of the lead caused McIlroy to implode.

Spieth, on the other hand, took a commanding lead on the first day of the 2015 Masters with a brilliant opening-round 64, and his name never fell off the top of the leaderboard again. He never let the lead get to his head and won the tournament by four strokes, becoming just the fifth wire-to-wire winner in Masters history and the first since 1976.

He was stoic and professional throughout the weekend. He said all the right things in his interviews, never showed emotion on the course and kept his focus. Every time his playing partner and runner-up Justin Rose moved a stroke closer on Sunday, Spieth countered with a birdie of his own. In the end, he tied Woods’ record for the lowest score at the Masters with a -18 and at one point became the only player in the tournament’s history to post -19 on the leaderboard.

His U.S. Open performance over the weekend was much the same. With the crazy fast and dry conditions at Chambers Bay, the scores were a lot higher, but the once constant was seeing Spieth’s in the top-5 all weekend. He started strong with a 68 then a 67 on Thursday and Friday to take him to -5 while a 71 on Saturday left him in a 4-way tie for first place at -4 headed into the last day.

Of the four players tied, Spieth had hit the fewest fairways off the tee, but the most greens in regulation. In other words, his tee shots were finding the rough, but he was recovering so well that he stuck the greens more often than his competitors could form the fairway. A 69 on Sunday was enough to win it for Spieth, and it was spectacular to watch.

He never let his poor play off the tee get to his head. He constantly found himself with terrible lies in Chambers Bay’s awful fescue, but he kept his head and continued to play well. Then, when it mattered most, he left himself a makeable eagle putt on the 18th green, which he missed by no more than an inch, leaving a tap-in birdie for the outright lead with just Johnson in striking distance in the final group. Johnson cracked under pressure and three-putted from just 12 feet away, so Spieth became the youngest winner of consecutive majors in the history of the sport.

There’s nothing spectacular about his physical play. He isn’t the longest hitter on tour. He isn’t the best putter. He doesn’t use his wedges as well as Phil Mickelson. If you watched him play one hole, you might not be that impressed by any aspect of his game. But watching him get out to a lead on the first day of a major championship and never look back is breathtaking. His mental game for a 21-year-old kid is outstanding. Bobby Jones once said, “golf is a game played on a five-inch course—the distance between your ears.” If that’s the case, Spieth is here to stay.

2015 Stanley Cup Preview

The 2015 Stanley Cup Final is upon us, and it features two teams not many expected to see in this position. Both the Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning had to push their way through one of league’s top two seeds in the conference final to square off against each other for a chance to win the greatest trophy in all of sports: Lord Stanley’s Cup.

It’ll be a classic matchup between the “up and coming” Lightning and the “been there, done that” Blackhawks. The Hawks have found themselves in the Western Conference final for the fifth time in seven years. They won it all in 2010 and 2013, and they’ve generally been the league’s most dominant team over the last half decade.

However, their lackluster play in the regular season and the lack of depth at the blue line caused many hockey experts to leave them out of the final in their brackets. When you add the dubious health of Patrick Kane entering the playoffs, and the horrendous showing from goaltender Corey Crawford in games one and two of the first round, and there was legitimate reason to doubt this squad.

The Lightning, on the other hand, flew pretty much under the radar this season, as they do every season. Being in Tampa Bay, Florida, they don’t capture a lot of attention from the hockey world. They should.

The Lightning are by far the most exciting young team in the league, with their top line—often called the Triplets line—consisting of three players all in their second NHL season. Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat finished second and third respectively in the running for the Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) behind Nathan McKinnon last year. Nikita Kucherov was quiet as a rookie, with just 18 points in 52 games, but exploded for 64 points in 82 games this season. This season, the three combined for a whopping 199 points in 234 games. The scariest part? I haven’t even mentioned Steven Stamkos yet.

Stamkos is one of the league’s premier scorers, just three years removed from a 60-goal, 97-point season. He racked up 43 goals this season and another seven so far in the playoffs. Victor Hedman is another star on the team, as a premier defenseman that gets involved at both ends of the ice. Of the five players I just mentioned, Stamkos is the oldest at 25. This team is going to be good for a long, long time.

But this is the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, and there’s no need to look at the Blackhawks’ past success or the Lightning’s promising future. Let’s break down the matchup for this year’s Cup, which begins on Wednesday night at 8:00pm in Tampa Bay.

Goaltending is always the most important part of any playoff series. Some years the Cup comes down to which superstar goaltender outperforms the other. In 2011 it was Tim Thomas and Roberto Luongo. Last year it was Jonathan Quick and Henrik Lundvist. This year is different, however, in that neither team boasts a goalie considered one of the best in the league.

My initial feeling is to give the advantage Chicago’s Corey Crawford, because he has his name engraved on the Cup from just two years ago, and has plenty of experience making deep playoff runs. However, he gets an extraordinary amount of help from one of the best rosters in league history, and very rarely has to steal a game for his team. There are at least 10 goalies in the league that could have won that 2013 Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks roster in front of them.

Lightning goalie Ben Bishop, on the other hand, is playing in his very first Stanley Cup Playoffs. At 28 years old, he is young by goalie standards, and is in just his second season as a full time starter. He was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy (best goalie in the league) last season, and when he’s on, it is almost impossible to find any open net behind his 6’7” frame.

He can absolutely steal a game for the Lightning, as he showed with shutouts at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers in games five and seven of the Eastern Conference Final. The problem is that he’s not always on and is prone to making some crucial mistakes in big moments. However, he is on his game more often than not, and when he is, he’s a better goalie than Crawford.

This series won’t be about the goalies, though. Of course a particularly weak performance from either would swing the series, but neither guy will win this series on his own the way Thomas did for the Bruins in 2011. This series will come down to which team does a better job of shutting down the other team’s superstars.

That task seems like a tall one for the Lightning. The Blackhawks boast a host of established NHL stars in Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp, Duncan Keith and Kane. There is no way to stop them all, but the job for the Lightning will be to slow them down as much as possible, and force other guys on the team to step up.

The Lightning have a very underrated set of defensemen that don’t get talked about much, and coach John Cooper has confidence in all three of his pairings. They haven’t seen a team with that kind of top end scoring talent in the playoffs, so it will be interesting to see how well they handle it.

The key for them will be slowing down Toews. Toews is the model for an NHL center, as he is elite in every facet of the game. There is no flaw to Toews’ game, and if you find one, you’re wrong. He almost singlehandedly willed the Blackhawks past the Ducks with five goals in the series’ final four games, including the first two in game 7. If the Lightning can shut him down, they have a good chance of shutting the Hawks down. It seems simple, but no one has figured out how to do it yet.

The Blackhawks have essentially been playing with four defensemen throughout the playoffs, giving their third pair just 10 minutes of ice time each game. It means that Keith has been logging nearly 30 minutes per game. Granted he’s playing in a league above every other defenseman in the NHL right now, and has shown no signs of slowing down, but it has to be brutal on his body.

The Lightning are also a lot faster as a team than the Ducks, and you have to wonder whether Keith’s tired legs will be able to keep up with the likes of Johnson, Palat and Stamkos. The Lightning’s speed could mean that the Blackhawks will have to play that third pairing more than they’re comfortable with, which could lead to matchup issues for them when Tampa Bay has the last change at home.

It will also be interesting to see who Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville will match Toews up against. Toews is his best defensive center, and is usually matched against the opponent’s top center. Tyler Johnson is leading the playoffs with 12 goals and 21 points, but Stamkos isn’t far behind with 17 points. If Quenneville matches Toews on Johnson, it’s likely that Stamkos would dominate a matchup with Brad Richards. If it were my decision, I’d put Toews on Stamkos and put Keith and Brent Seabrook on the ice to defend the Triplets.

My Prediction: This series is going to be really fun. Both teams have copious amounts of speed and talent, while both lack a true superstar between the pipes, so it will likely be high scoring. I think, however, that Bishop will step up and provide the Lightning with the better goaltender in the series. The team speed of the Lightning will wear down the Blackhawks’ overworked defensemen, and Tyler Johnson will continue his hot streak. I’m taking the Lightning in 6.